Gideon KayLGCCIO 100 2012 - No. 43

LGC is an independent scientific services company providing biochemical, chemical and DNA analysis to a wide range of clients from sports organisations to police forces and the British government that once ran it. Privatised in 1996 LGC has grown in size from 270 staff to 1500 in 2010, making it the largest independent science services company in Europe. It was acquired in 2010 by venture capitalists.

IT Leader: Gideon Kay, CIO

In role since: 15 months

Reporting line: CEO

Board level seat: No – but only the CEO & CFO do – with the non-execs – the head of IT sits with all other functional and operational heads on the executive board

IT budget: Five per cent of turnover

IT estate and or number of log on accounts under the control of the IT leader: Approximately 1500-1800 users

Level of the workforce that relies on technology to carry out their tasks: 100 per cent

IT staff currently employed: 60

Split between in-house/outsourced staff: All in-house

IT management team and reporting structure: Business Apps Director, Operations Director and Strategy/Architecture lead

Significant strategic technology deals been struck in the last 12 months: New deals with BT and LabWare

Strategic aim of the CIO and IT operations for the next financial year: Delivery of the three year IT strategy (Year 2 in 2012) – focusing more on e-commerce as well as completion of some major IT enabled change programmes.

Technologies considered by the leader to offer their organisation potential: Already virtualised, now focused on cloud/SAAS options as well as knowledge management platforms and commercialisation of IT.

How do you see technology transforming your organisation in the near future? Significantly – many of our lab services deliver results online to our customers and in some cases receive work electronically – this will only grow and grow. Our products businesses are growing rapidly geographically but need more and more e-commerce capability to truly be global and so reliance will be huge in this area.